1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a social network service (SNS) system and method for recommending a friend of a friend based on an intimacy between users.
2. Discussion of the Background
Typically, a friend recommendation function of a social network service (SNS) is used to assist a user to make a new friend, and to provide a service to a user with a number of friends. In a conventional system, when a friend of a user is defined to be a first-group friend, and when a friend of the first-group friend is defined to be a second-group friend of the user, recommending merely the second-group friend to the user (that is, a scheme of recommending a friend of a friend) is provided.
For example, when users A and B are assumed to be friends (F(A, B)=True), and a mutual friend count of users A and C is assumed to be represented by ‘M.F.C(A, C),’ a set of friends recommended to the user A may be defined to be a set of users C who are friends of the user B, but are not friends of the user A (F(A, B)=True and F(B, C)=True and F(A, C)=not True). In this instance, conventionally, sets of recommended friends may be arranged in an order of ‘M.F.C(A, C)’ for each of the set of users C. Additionally, friends may be recommended to the user A in the order of ‘M.F.C(A, C),’ or friends corresponding to ‘M.F.C(A, C)’ equal to or greater than a predetermined value.
However, in conventional schemes of recommending a second-group friend to a user, a recommendation priority is determined based on only a number of mutual friends between the user and the second-group friend, that is, merely based on the mutual friend count, and accordingly, it is difficult to reflect important factors for recommending friends to a user because the conventional scheme may not consider an actual relationship between the user and the second-group friend. For example, even assuming the conventional scheme determines a number of mutual friends (e.g., 100 mutual friends) between the specific user and the second-group friend, they may not know each other. In other words, the conventional scheme using the mutual friend count may not represent how the two users are related to each other.
Therefore, there is a need for an approach for effectively recommending a friend in a Social Networking Service (SNS).
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form any part of the prior art nor what the prior art may suggest to a person of ordinary skill in the art.